Fast Takes: A prelude to court packing, restoring the work ethic and more

“Both parties claim” to want to “preserve the middle class,” note Stephen J.Rose & Scott Winship at The New York Times.

But far better if it shrinks as “everyone gets richer.” That’s what their research shows has happened this last half-century: “The ‘core’ middle class shrank, but so did” the poor, near-poor and lower middle class.That is, “the traditional middle class shrank because so many families became better off.” Yes, this is “at odds with popular views of the economy” and the politics of issues like “affordability,” but polling tells us feelings about personal finances don’t change much when the national mood toward the economy changes.

People reset expectations as they grow wealthier: “We always want more,” however much we have.“One of America’s most acute social and economic problems is a retreat from work, especially among prime-age men,” laments The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board — so it’s “good news that four million Americans have left food stamps over the past year.” Enrollment soared “during the pandemic” yet failed to recede when that “emergency ended years ago.” Then Congress expanded work requirements to “stop subsidizing” the indolent — “the correct moral and fiscal policy.” States have little “incentive to police the program since the feds pay the bills,” so “welfare programs have become permanent entitlements” that degrade the “work ethic and breed a culture of dependency on government.” This shift on food stamps is a win “that never would have happened if today’s Democrats were in power.”Democrats and their media allies show “profound” “intellectual dishonesty” when they claim the Supreme Court’s “response to Virginia’s redrawn congressional map, which favored Democrats, and Alabama’s redrawn map, which favors Republicans, as proof that the court’s conservative majority is bought and paid for by Republican donors,” thunders...